Baghdad, Najaf, Asharq Al-Awsat – Following a meeting on Wednesday between Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [SIIC] party leader Ammar al-Hakim and Iraqi Prime Minister and State of Law coalition leader Nouri al-Maliki, al-Hakim reported that the talks to form a coalition between the State of Law coalition and the National Iraqi Alliance, of which the SIIC is a member, have ended in failure.

Al-Hakim stressed that he supports the formation of a “national partnership” government that includes the Iraqiya List that is led by Iyad Allawi that won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the recent Iraqi elections.

Al-Hakim also denounced the description given by a number of senior members from al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition of Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc as a Baathist coalition.

In addition to this, the Sadrist trend expects millions of Iraqis to take part in a referendum organized by the movement to choose the candidate to head the next government from a list of five Iraqi politicians over the next two days. The Iraqi leaders being deliberated on in the Sadrist referendum are; Iraqiya bloc leaders Iyad Allawi, State of Law coalition leader Nouri al-Maliki, National Iraqi Alliance candidate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, SIIC candidate Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and State of Law candidate Jaafar al-Sadr, who is the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and cousin of Sadrist trend leader Moqtada al-Sadr.